Alpaca Fiber – Our philosophy

Our primary breeding objective is to produce a healthy, well-conformed alpaca with as much commercially valuable prime fleece as possible that will be productive for the majority of its lifespan. This is accomplished by virtue of striving to create alpaca fleeces that are not just dense, bright, and generally fine in their micron, but are also consistent in their qualities over a broader area of the animal itself. That area of prime fleece will ideally extend both up the neck and down into the lower belly, as well as the animal’s legs.

This is not an abstract exercise here: We (read: Jennifer) personally grade and sort every ounce of our farm’s annual fiber clip that is processed into yarn and roving at the fiber mill we co-own in Brandon, VT. Dating back to the spring of 1998, we have put our hands on every single fleece our breeding program has ever produced, and there is a high probability when we are breeding a pair of alpacas here at CCNF, that they are at least the 6th or 7th generation of their respective family lines that we have personally worked with. Understanding from a fleece perspective where we are in our breeding program’s evolution, and how we got there is invaluable to how we go about things. Culminating in 25+ years of experience and institutional memory that we are fortunate to be the custodians of.

While we do make use of in-house fiber testing (the farm owns its own OFDA 2000 machine) and statistical analysis in our herd’s breeding decisions, that data is just one in a set of tools we have at our disposal when looking at our alpacas, their fleeces, and how best to breed them in hopes of creating advancements in the subsequent generations.  For a snapshot of where this philosophy has taken us, you can check out our Fleece Awards page detailing the Fleece Cups, Judges’ Choice Winners, Championships, Reserve Championships, and production class wins our breeding program has garnered over the past 10 years alone.